Following a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, a severe and enduring mental health problem, I decided to walk around the coast of the UK to highlight the plight of people with mental health problems – people who often feel on the periphery of society.
Having been ‘disabled’ out of my job as a senior social worker, becoming homeless and then undertaking two years of fabulous group psychotherapy, I was inspired by the philosophy of Satish Kumar, a Jain monk who went on a peace march in the 1960s. He took no money with him. If he had, as his guru explained, he wouldn’t have had the motivation to speak to people at the end of the day. I thought that if Kumar could walk from India into Pakistan expecting and receiving great hospitality when the two countries were at war, then I should expect no less from the residents of the UK. I began my journey in April 2011.